Let's Discuss Dangerous Witches

[JackieChan]

Okay. I understand Maestro's frustration with Dangerous Witches and I feel that we all should look into a way potentially balancing them, so this new topic about them is going to have a poll with a couple ideas. Let me know what you think of them and give your thoughts on what else we can do with them.

 

Here are the 2 options I came up with in more detail:

 

Add a multiplier based on current Witch alive count:

The more Witches that are alive, the more expensive buying Dangerous Witches (still a one time upgrade) will cost. Dangerous Witches under this change will revert back to a cost of 30 points. The starting multiplier will be x1.0. The multiplier increment I was thinking of would be 0.1. So...

 

(Starting Multiplier + (Multiplier Increment * 5 Witches)) * 30 = 45 points to enable Dangerous Witches (which is what it's currently at without this).

or

(Starting Multiplier + (Multiplier Increment * 8 Witches)) * 30 = 54 points to enable Dangerous Witches.

 

The number of Witches in the equation would be the amount that are currently alive, not the total amount that were alive AND dead.

 

Make purchasing them a timed item:

The price of Dangerous Witches would revert back to 30 points. However, the upgrade would only last a certain amount of time before it reverts itself back to off, and then at that point can be purchased again.

 

As an example (not a "in concrete" time), let's say that when Dangerous Witches gets enabled, it lasts for 2 minutes. The announcement that " made things a little DANGEROUS!" may or may not be taken away. The idea that I had before of buying fake announcements would make things a little more... interesting.

 

Once the 2 minutes is up, Dangerous Witches gets disabled and at that point can be repurchased by any Infected player.

 

---

 

Let me know what you guys think of these.

[Jerkoff]

Going with the 2nd option if you put in the fake announcement in the future. I love random chaos like that.

[MPG1770]

Thanks JC

 

I vote for 2nd option. People will have to think strategically about using this upgrade.

[Protomanx13]

Just throwing out there but is it possible to say dangerous witch applies to the first say 3 witches then purchasing again will add another 3 to it.

 

I don't like the 2nd as we will see survivor staying in one spot before moving forward often

Edited April 10, 2014 by Protomanx13

[JackieChan]

Just throwing out there but is it possible to say dangerous witch applies to the first say 3 witches then purchasing again will add another 3 to it.

 

I don't like the 2nd as we will see survivor staying in one spot before moving forward often

 

That why the announcement may or may not show up anymore with the addition of fake announcements.

[VladPiranha]

I'm still in support of the 30pt flat rate for dangerous witches with no necessary upgrade to buy. If you think about it, that has a few interesting features that would enhance the experience:

 

1. A normal witch and a dangerous witch would be indistinguishable from one another. One person could buy a DW and everyone else could surround it with normal witches as cheap distractions, creating a sense of paranoia and intimidation when you see a pile of several with no idea which one is the real threat. If this became too unbalanced, we could also probably just give them a red shade like we do to infected players.

 

2. To buy a mob of DWs would be too expensive for a single person to do on his or her own. The current system, once the upgrade is in place, is illustrative of that. It takes currently takes at least two people to do anything useful with them. 100pts is as much as many players get in a single, well played round and it would only put three down with a bit of change left over. I like witches quite a bit, but to throw away two tanks, or a tank and almost two heals, is leaning toward recklessness.

 

3. Because of point #2, it would require a team effort to put down enough witches to represent a really serious threat, encouraging the kind of teamwork we strive for.

 

4. Since witches can spawn in really useless locations if you don't spring for the placement upgrade, it would be nice to have access to cheaper witches to test their placement ahead of time before committing a larger amount of resources to their dangerous counterparts. You can do that now, sure, but this would enable the ability all round long.

[Lookback]

To your point #2 - Does that not depend on who is driving the tank?

[oakgyrl510]

make witches cost constant 20(25 for manual), all witches have 60% chance of being dangerous(no upgrade buy necessary). lets play a witch farm lotto lol

[Test]

^

60% is too high. if it has to be, 20% to 30% is fine.

[PeanutButterNJelly]

I like both of the ideas Jackie, I also don't mind leaving it the way it is, if we allow people to purposely buy them, then do the upgrade. But I had to pick one option, so I picked the timed option (just make it longer than 2 mins, I know that was just an example). I love the idea of buying fake messages too.

[oakgyrl510]

^

60% is too high. if it has to be, 20% to 30% is fine.

witches are easy to kill though if theres no inf there to setup a trap

[MasterTalpa]

oak likes traps

[JackieChan]

We can try both ideas...not both at once mind you. They will be easy enough to implement and with that fake messages will be added too.

[Test]

disable witch headshot pls.

[Twins]

they really are fine the way they are. kinda easy to kill them as well if you dont do manual placement

[lordbaby]

disable witch headshot pls.

makes no sense.. i dont think it is enabled either.. can someone verify

[Test]

^

shotguns can 1 hit witch. i guess many will disagree with this idea, since it is "part" of the game.

[MurderinClony]

^

shotguns can 1 hit witch. i guess many will disagree with this idea, since it is "part" of the game.

 

I don't even want to begin a rage on you for this comment. It is not "part" of the game, it IS the game. There is even an achievement from Valve to CROWN the witch. Only way to do that is a shotgun, and Valve intended this. This can even be done with a pump shotgun, although very hard, it requires all pellets to hit the head of the witch. The only thing Jackie has done is change the distance and rate at which the witch gets agroed. And which I must say, makes crowning the witch almost impossible now, unless she has agro on someone else, you don't have time to reach her before she is already standing up rushing at you. Only way I have done it was to take an adrenaline and push her with an auto shotty, only to have ever killed her in 1 shot with it.

 

I remember the times where I could walk up with a pump shotgun and pop her in the head before she even stood up halfway, yes on this server.

[JackieChan]

Only reason I made Witches more sensitive was because vanilla Witches are a complete joke. You can steal their lunch money and do a little jig in front of them and they will still cry about how the mall is closed.

[Test]

@murderin

 

Witch is only a part of the game, it is not the game. Why? Left 4 dead will still be there if there were no witches.

[swatfishy]

how is that related to your original comment about removing the hs multiplier or clony's response??

[MurderinClony]

If you take any part of a game out, the game will still be the same game, but it will be lacking something very important that the game mechanics work around, so essentially, each piece is the game. If you removed the witch, the survivors would no longer slow down at certain spots when a witch is about. This is used by Valve to strategically slow the survivors down, to make them think about avoiding or plan to try and kill them a certain way. If there were no witches, maps like Hard Rain 2 would have no purpose, also note it is witch heaven and there are also several comments made by the survivors about these witches. Each infected has their own strategic purpose.

 

But Valve didn't make these things impassible, and they can be killed if you are skillful enough, but not in Realism, but to counter for this change in style, they made the witch unable to break doors down, and now allow a survivor to startle her and rush behind a door to let his teammates do the dirty work.

 

This is all taking into account vanilla gameplay, 4v4 versus or 4 player coop campaign. Not the server where you can get explosive ammo out of thin air for each witch and just stumble her to death.

 

The same can be said about all the other infected but I'm too lazy to go into detail about each one.

 

This is also just a rant to keep this forum post towards the top so we can make sure the poll gets done.

[Test]

@swatfishy

 

I just responded to murderin's comment about being a part of the game vs being the game. I guess we have different way of understanding this concept.

 

Anyway, i voted for 3rd option.

[zero0]

Just a suggestion. How about making it so that only withes purchased after dangerous witches is enabled become dangerous and those purchased before are not dangerous. This would eliminate a lot of the problem with announcing "buy witches now and then I will buy up the dangerous option". It personally doesn't bother me, but if its a big issue for enough people I guess we should "fix" it, get rid of it, or just leave it alone. A team will announce when they are buying a tank, upping a spitter limit, buy-up unannounced tank, buy witches on respawn cause they are gonna defib, spit on my charge, chain charge a smoked person back to the saferoom. These are verbally stated strategies that maximize points for the infected teams and I consider the dangerous witch announcement just another one, but to tell a team they can't talk about a strategy among themselves is a little unfair. Just to be clear and not appear self serving. I rarely buy witches of any kind myself.

[MurderinClony]

Just a suggestion. How about making it so that only withes purchased after dangerous witches is enabled become dangerous and those purchased before are not dangerous. This would eliminate a lot of the problem with announcing "buy witches now and then I will buy up the dangerous option". It personally doesn't bother me, but if its a big issue for enough people I guess we should "fix" it, get rid of it, or just leave it alone. A team will announce when they are buying a tank, upping a spitter limit, buy-up unannounced tank, buy witches on respawn cause they are gonna defib, spit on my charge, chain charge a smoked person back to the saferoom. These are verbally stated strategies that maximize points for the infected teams and I consider the dangerous witch announcement just another one, but to tell a team they can't talk about a strategy among themselves is a little unfair. Just to be clear and not appear self serving. I rarely buy witches of any kind myself.

 

Not sure this can be done, because in order to change any witch to be dangerous, you must change console commands, and when you change these commands, all witches would be effected, regardless of witches already placed. I believe its an all or nothing choice here. Or so that is my knowledge of the console, that leads me to believe this, I could be wrong.